Joe Loyer has agreed to answer our questions, so please send yours to info at Orbitmedia dot fm or leave them in the comments on Spotify or Apple.
Thank you.
Hi there, It's Steve Fishman from Orbit Media and this is Get the Money and Run. In today's episode, episode four, Joe recounts his glorious days of bank robbing. He robbed more than thirty banks in one fourteen months free and I admit he sure makes bank rubbing sound like fun. Remember to bingoel seven episodes ad free. Subscribe to True Crime Clubhouse on Apple podcasts. Okay, over to Ben.
You are listening to The Burden Season four, Get the Money and Run. I'm Benadir and this is episode four Life and Crimes.
When did you rob your first bolt? That was December.
And I was pissed that I only got ten thousand dollars with six bricks of money. But I was like, hey, I know how to do this now, let me you know, let me go back two months later, let me try it again. I mean I was let me get six other bricks of money. So I do the same thing. I walk in the same front door, not the back.
I came to the same exact bank.
Same freaking bank. And why did you do that? I was telling you I had scored here. I had gotten into the place easily. I just took the wrong amount of loot. So I'm like, I'm gonna do this again. It was easy.
I now know how to dance in there easier.
I'm not gonna be coming to the front. I can concentrate more of the money. Rip open the thing. See what I'm pulling out, that kind of thing before I take the money. I feel like confident this time, I'm gonna get twenties and fifties and hundreds.
I walk in, I walk up to a woman.
Who's at the front of the bank and I tell you tigma to the vaunt. But then I look over to my right and all the fucking staff are on me.
They're looking at me. They're on the phone, they're like what I'm like.
Everyone had clocked me coming in, and I realized, oh shit, Like I can't go one more minute in here, man, I like, they stop me. They they they blocked me to that fucking that vault. Man. They're like, you ain't
getting that vault again. They recognized me instantly, and I thought I was just like I actually had a feeling a bullshit, you know, expectation that I could just blend in, I could just walk in with the rest of the people and just walk up and no, man, they were there to beat on me as soon as I walked in the front door, and so I just walked right up.
Yeah.
I thought it was like.
Kind of a sexy bank robber, because you know, look at I had these clothes, and a couple of times I did some funny or you know, I did some cool getaway things. But I was I was not happy with the way I went. And I'm really recognizing that I was an amateur.
H I'm not impressed. Yah h.
Part one bank Bank Bank Bank, Bank Joe is the easiest bank you robbed.
The easiest bank I robbed was actually in a mall, not like an indoor mall.
It's like a walking plusa mall.
Yeah yeah, yeah, there's an Orange County somewhere. And I walk in and it's super tiny. I mean, the lobby is so small that basically there's two or three taller's max and then to the left in the lobby is a little patch of carpet and one little tiny desk on there for the manager or somebody that's it. It's a little, barely nothing bank. And when I walk in, no customers, no manager, There's just two women in the tewer stations there in their stools talking to each other,
head sideways, talking to each other. I walk in, they look at me. I look around and it is the most peculiar bank I've ever walked in. It's just it's almost like it's pretending to be a bank. It's so skinny, narrow, tiny, little cute lobby and these two women are looking at me, and I'm looking at them and I say, yeah, you know what this is.
It's a robbery, give me your money.
Just like I just like start walking up to them, like yeah, this is what this could just it was really peculiar, and they just start they look at me, and just like I say yeah, and I give maybe, give my spiel whatever. I don't have to do much to persuade him. They're like, let's do this, and they just start putting the money up. And they're putting the money up. So like I'm over here at this teller and I'm dumping money in my bag and I'm going
to other dumping money in my bag. Oh you put some more money out, Let me go get that, and like, I just collect the money and I leave. The second other easiest robbery, but it was only one teller was a bank. I walked in and before I could finish my spiel, she started giving me the money.
Like you didn't even ask for the money.
She just I didn't even ask for like big bills first. She starts giving me the big bills first. And there was a moment where I was like, man, you might want to slow down. I thought, if anyone looks at these this camera afterwards, they're gonna know that you gave me that money way too fast and like without question, without resistance. I wasn't even done. They're gonna think we were in cahoots. That's what I thought, Like.
Huh, it was that easy, And I think it almost.
Felt like after when I was trying to figure out what was that? Why did that happen?
Like that? That was just too freaking easy.
I thought, you know what, maybe her boyfriend told her, Hey, man, I'm sending Sammy in this afternoon, you know, and he's a Mexican dude, and she's gonna ask him. I just give it him and we can make out that way, and so she thought I was Sammy when I was.
You came in and she thought she thought someone else was coming to rob.
It wasn't.
It wasn't inside job. Sort of just wrong guy, just.
A guy who was outside of the inside. But I mean that's what it felt like, almost like she like, oh yeah, yes, Greek week. Nudge nudge, here's the money. Thanks for coming in to make it looking.
Like a robbery.
She gets him that night, She's like, where's my cut.
Down to San Diego? And I decide that I'm gonna rob a bunch of banks. One day, I get off the freeway. I'm parking on the corner of a bank parking lot. But that's not the bank I'm gonna rob. I walked past this bank because the bank I want to rob was actually down that there was a shrubbery, and then there was an incline where I went decline
into another parking lot where there was a bank. So it's two banks right next to each other, two bankshark next to each other, but there are different levels and a small hill with this crazy shrubbery, and so you know, I had to kind of run down the ruk through the shrubbery to get down there.
Big bank.
And that was a strange bank because when I walked in, it's like it just opened. It was one of those things where I was I always liked to rob early, and clearly I was a first customer. There's only one person in that bank, and she was over here on the side at a desk talking to somebody, and she looks at me, and I heard her say, well, I gotta get going. I got a customer, and I realized that's my teller. She's out here in the lobby talking to somebody, somebody on the phone, the.
Phone, the phone talking. Soon there's only her and me in there.
So when she's done, she's kind of far from me, you know, a couple of desks down on the lobby, you know, far from me. So she gets off the phone and she now has to like walk further away from me to get to a door on my far left over there to get to the inside the tawler station. And so I walk up to the teler station. She's a little short woman, and she starts walking to me past telestation one, past OEt station.
Two, and I'm just sitting and watching this way.
It's like she's like going on a journey in order to get robbed.
And so she's calming to me, and you know, she's walking and I'm watching her. Still nobody walking in from the outside, Still no customers walking in, still whatever, And I rob her. I basically like, this is a fucking robber. Give me the money now. I just like, don't make me pull the gun, and like, let's do this. And she is so angry at me, she is so pissed.
Well, I mean, she had their walk halfway around the block.
I made her work to come over. Just get robbed.
And the woman is resisting every way imaginable. I'm trying her, give me the big bills, she's giving me the ones. I'm trying her, you know whatever, anyway she can resist. She's resisting, and I'm mad. And it shows you one thing. As much as I want to terrorize people, if they don't want to be terrorized, they're not going to be terrorized. And I'm not jumping over the counter. I'm not going to shoot them. I'm not gonna pistol whip them. I have to rely that I'm persuasive up with my rage
to get them to do it. And this one for whatever reason, she wasn't persuaded. She made it super hard for me, and I could tell I wasn't even getting that much money.
So I leave. They're mad. So I'm walking across the fucking parking lot, pissed off, walking.
Through this truck, motherfuckingrubbery, walking the field, walking across the parking lot, and I'm passing this bank on the way to my car. This is the first bank I passed to get to this bank, and I'm like, fuck it, man, we rob and I walk in there, and even though the cops are on the way, I was all this rage, knowing that I got a little money, pretty sure. I've liket thumb through and realized, man, I may have only got twelve hundred bucks, you know, a little chump change.
And it fucking was long and hard to get that chump change. I got played.
I walked in there and I robbed that bank too, and I walk out to get away.
And that was because I was mad. I was just mad.
It was a funky bank rubbery, man, So like, it's not all of them are not? All of them were about you know, look at me, man, pristine will fucking you know, forged my way and got what I wanted. Nah, that woman wasn't having it.
Man, she was.
I may have been too nice on the way, I don't know, journey into me and she's like, yeah, fake a fright, got it out, Joe.
At what point did you feel like, Okay, I'm good at this, I'm rocking it. I'm a really good bank robber.
La Joya bank was gorgeous.
It had pillars in it, like marble pillars in it, like a Greek temple kind of thing.
It was crazy.
It was like the most prestigious looking bank I robbed. And you would think you I'd be intimidated, but I wasn't it. And the reason I know I wasn't nervous, and the reason I know I was adept this one actually had a guard at the front door, right at the front door inside standing on a stool. The inside of the bank was circular, like almost i'd say circular,
but it was more like a horseshoe. And what I did is when I went in line, I got called to the teller furthest from the guard at the front off to the top of the horseshoe on the left hand side. And they had doors. There wasn't just one front door. Here there was door exits, so when I was done, I was able to just walk out of another exit back there. So I was able to rob that bank with a garden at walk away and never get chased.
What's the most you ever got out.
Of one day?
It was Intestine, it was the Savings and Loan and I'm wearing a for doorra trench coat. It's raining out, so I look goofy, but I don't look completely.
Out of the line.
I mean, it's not like a summer, hot summer day, and like, why is that guy with a for door in trench call? You kind of understand, but I walk in. I walk to the manager's on a desk in the lobby. I tell her we have a bomb. I have a gun. Take me to the vault. She opens the door, no problem, grabs a key, gets up, and starts walking me across the lobby, totally compliant. She calls a woman behind the counter, and you know, she's like, whatever, Linda, meet me at
the vault. And Linda's like okay, and so she starts walking to the vault. We're walking across the lobby. The manager I'm with opens up the door, lets us into the back closes the door, and now we're all three in front of this vault door. They open the door, they step inside, I step inside with them. The two women are now opening a second door, so they both neither key to unlocked that. Now, once they get in the vault and you know, kind of like push them
in the vault, they get in there. Now we're in the vault, and right as you walk in, right in front of you, it looks like a library index card box.
Like the old school, the old school carter.
Then when you pull them out, they're really long, they're really you know, small little files.
But I'm guessing this one's not filled with library book notes. That's filled with money.
It's deep and it's long, and it's filled with rows of money. So there's twenties and tens and fives. Once thinking is I just reach in and I start taking all the money out, and I could see what I'm getting. I'm getting all the money. As soon as I'm done, and this goes fast, I look over, threaten him again, don't turn around, A count to one hundred, whatever, I go step out of that door. Now, I try to go to the door that I had been let into by the manager into the tailor station area.
It's locked.
I don't have a key, so like I got to hop the out the counter to get into the lobby to get out the bank. Fortunately for me, there's a small counter off to the right, the one for handicaps. So you're sitting there at a wheelchair. You can do your work while you're sitting down. And so I have to step on a chair, step on that jump off into the lobby and I look around and there's people looking at me. I'm you know, I'm a guy jumping
over a counter. And I remember when I saw the movie Public Enemies with Johnny Depp, there's this one badass scene where he puts his hand on the counter and he hops over it like he's hopping over a small fence, sort of starts being yeah, and his coat's coming over. He's wearing the for door and I looked at that. I was like, man, that looks sexy as fucking I was like, I did that for door on a trench coat, Like I'm that dude right like, And but I remember
looking at them thinking that it's fucking cool. And I didn't actually put my hand on there, and like hop over, I stepped over, but it had the same feel like you know, when everyone looks over me, they know that, okay, some of these baths going on. This guy's walking out of here. He looks at us with menace and he engages everything, assesses were all right, and he walks out of here fast, so they know I.
Just robbed the place.
I get out the bank and I just start running. I get to my car, I drive away, and you know I'm far enough away to pull over, because you know that's the thing. You know, I got a lot of money. I wonder how much I got. You know, I'm not gonna drive forty five minutes home on our home to find out how much money I got. I'm gonna find out as soon as I feel safe.
I pull over.
I count it thirty two thousand plus. Oh wow, yeah, my biggest hole.
How did it feel after getting that much money?
Felt good? I mean, I love you home with as the stupidest question.
All right, we'll be right back. Part two. Nice guys finished first.
Okay, so we're on the five going north out of San Diego, North San Diego County.
I was driving home. I just robbed four banks in San Diego.
I got like fifty thousand dollars on me, a little over fifty thousand dollars on me in a fanning pack in the backseat.
And I get to a point where.
I'm driving and I could see far ahead, like I could see part of the freeway winding there, and it was all red lights, and I quickly came to a stop. It was parking lot. It was we stopped, and we stopped, and that was it. And you were inching ford at the crazy minute rate. Could don understand why maybe it was around here?
Well, in this part of I five, coming between San Diego and LA this is Camp Pendleton. So there's nowhere to get off the freeway. There's no exit ramps, there's just like there's nothing. There's just freeway and you're stuck on.
It, and you're stuck on it for like five miles or something like that. There's there's nothing you can do. I'm thinking they're looking for me. They have clearly.
Decided that I robbed banks, and they're shut down.
The freewheel be ahead. So I'm like, Okay, I get how this works. So I don't know exactly what I'm gonna do. I'm kind of panicking, but pretty soon the decision is taken from me because my car starts overheating, and I what so like a inch inch inch, like I let people like, hey, let me go, let me get through, let me get I gotta go off the right.
So I get off the right and I go on this lane right here, and so I part my car maybe about right here actually, and then I get out of my car and I put the money around my ways and I start walking off this off ramp here. So I walk down this off ramp and down here at the bottom of the off ramp, his car parked waving everyone in.
There is the cop.
Now he can see that. You know clearly I wasn't trying to get over, and I don't have my car.
I'm not here. I said, is there a gas station or something on there?
He goes, no, you got to go under the freeway here and go back where you came from three miles four miles back, there's a gas station. I'm like, all right, thanks, And I'm really trying to do the like I'm I'm a college kid and I'm fucked up and you're the authority. And I apologize, and he was like, you know, he actually was nice about it, and I don't care because I got away. I'm like good, I'm kidding away. I got I've got bath. Yeah, I'm good. I'm going this way.
And then I just like startled, like whoo whoop. And I turn around and there's a highway patrol car right pulling up to me.
What are you doing?
I said, Well, that guy your officer down there, your your buddy whatever. He he told my car overheat. I'm like all bumbling it.
He told me.
That that I could go this way because I don't, you know my car overheatedn't and just panicking, like pretending like I'm just so scared of everyone's authority.
And they're like, get in the backseat, we'll take it there.
I said, really, He goes, yeah, yeah, I gat thanks, and I hop in the back and all all happy about it, and and so we start taking off. You know, they're cops and they have to figure out, you know, who I am. They're suspicious and they have to ask.
What are you doing? Where do you come from?
I said, well, you know, I met this girl at USC We were at a party and she she lived down here, so I came down here for two or three days.
But you know how that happens. Man, I had plenty. It was enough. I had to get the hell out of there.
And then they're like, all of a sudden, and this misogyny that I'm like leaning into, you know, it's man, you get it.
Men and women just fucking they're they're wears out or whatever.
They got that, and then all of a sudden they just calmed out, Yeah, yeah, we get it. And all of a sudden, we're bros in that car because we're all like, yeah, women, you know, they're all they're muff us up. Everything was cool at that point, and I said, he's hey, the officer told me that there's been some accident or something back and then they share with me that and there's officers who were shot, and there's a crash. An officer crashed and the guy crashed. Then they say,
you know, but the bad guy. We got the bad guy. And I said, well, what about the officer? I started leaning into, like I'm a citizen and I care about.
You guys, and what about him? Is he all right? And they say, oh, yeah, he's gonna be fine. I said, does you have a family. I'm really laying on.
The compassion for the cop thing so that they like me, and they do.
They like me.
We pull over and there's a rest up back there a couple of miles back. I said, you know what, just leave me off with the rest of us, saying, hey, taking a gas and said, you know what, it's my uncle's car. And he didn't tell me that it overheats, so just leave me here. I'm gonna make him come down and get it. So then I said, they pull over and I try to get out. There's no handles in the back seat. So I'm like, oh wow, there's no handles back every time, like I've never been in
the back of a police car before. And I got fifty thousand dollars my my, uh you know, I'm carrying fifty thousand dollars I mean, and they say, uh, oh yeah, we gotta let you out. So they let me out, and you know, the cop in the passenger seat gets out, lets me out.
And then they rolled over.
He gets back in, he rolls the window down, and I said, hey, thank you, officers.
I appreciate you guys giving me this ride.
And they were friendly to me, like we could take you no pro I'm like, no, no, no thanks anyway, and they drove.
Off, and I was like, what the fuck?
Late at night, I get a call from an ex Salmat Ahad in San Diego County jail and he says, were you doing any work down here today? I said, yeah, ma'am. He says, you're all over the TV. You're on Crime Stoppers. They think that's your Pakistani and they think you live at the Wana.
I was like, all right, good to no good to know.
So those two guys had me in the back seat of the car. They saw my face. I came to the door. I looked at them, you know, hey, thank you, appreciate it.
Whatever.
The next morning, these guys come into work. They and they like, we're looking for this mail. He robbed four banks today. Have you see anything about If you have any information, can you let us know? And I wanted do those cops say, oh, we gotta go tell them me at them, or do they say keep our mouths fucking shut, don't tell anybody that we had this Kui in our car and we drove him to get away.
We'll be right back Part three. I'm coming back to get you.
First thing in the morning, nine o'clock. We opened right on the dot. All the time.
This is a former bank teller who didn't want us to use her name. She's one of the victims of Joe's so called victimless crimes.
And this gentlemen walked straight to me quickly. I was still kind of getting my stuff Freddy at my teller station, and he approached me. He had on a trench coat, sunglasses, He had dark hair, dark mustache.
White straight teeth. I remember his mouth because I couldn't see his eyes when he approached.
I just had a weird feeling and like, why are you wearing sunglasses in line in a bank. That's kind of a dead giveaway. So I don't believe he gave me a note. I think he told me, you know, open the door and take.
Me to the vault. You know, I'm gonna rob you, or something like that.
I can't remember but exactly what he said, but I just remembered like, oh my god, and just pressing the button for the alarm and being kind of comatose, but letting him in like I would to anybody else. And I walked back to the vault with him, and I told him I don't have keys to anything, and he said, get somebody who does, so We walked out of the vault and to the first supervisor desk that we came across. My supervisor had her head down and she was writing.
She doesn't even look up, and I said, I need the keys to the vault.
She's like what.
She looks up and she sees me, and she sees a horror in my face, and then she sees him standing behind me, and we're behind the teller line, so she knew it was not right. So she stood up with me and we walked back to the vault. We start walking back to the vault with him. She tells me I only have one set, and she's she's like petrified. And by this time we're back the door that I let him in and it was taken a long time.
All of this took quite a while.
So he just turns around and he tells me, I'm coming back to get you. He whispered it to me, and he took off, and she fell down to the ground crying, and I was trying to comfort her.
I'm like, he's gone, it's okay, it's okay.
And then I found out that our assistant bank manager ran out after him to see which way he was running and he opened his jacket and pulled out a gun, and so the assistant bank manager ran back in the building and locked the doors, which is what you're supposed to do so they don't run back in. And then we waited for the police and FBI to arrive and to be interviewed.
But he got no money. Obviously, it took too long.
And then when he said what he said to you, do you remember how you were feeling then.
In shock, couldn't believe it was happening, but just trying to obey his commands to let him in to the vault.
So what happened afterwards?
After I talked to the FBI and I was let go for the day, obviously not going back to work, and it was it took a long time. I don't think I left until like two in the afternoon, so that was there for hours, and I remember, okay, you know, I was fine, like, yeah, I get the afternoon off, I kind of you know, he's gone, and I did tell I do remember telling the FBI, why did he tell me he was coming back to get me? And they said they say that to scare you, so you forget,
you forget what they look like. They forget you forget what any details what they told you. The whole incident just tries to scare you, and I go, oh, okay. So when I left at two o'clock that afternoon, I walked out of the building by myself.
Nobody walked me to my car, and.
That's when I started freaking out because I didn't feel safe and I thought he was out there waiting for me, even though they tried to assure me I was just I ran to my car and started crying.
Yeah, because I thought he was out there. Yeah, he scared me.
How long did that stay with you?
Probably about six to eight weeks. I couldn't drive at night or to school. My parents had to pick me up from college if I had a night class, and nightmares. We lived in a two story house, had some big windows, and I would dream or wake up that he was just if I looked out the window, he'd be standing there on the sidewalk, those types of things. Yeah, for about two months, I never forgot his face.
Yeah, if you could say anything to him today, what would you say?
Oh, jeez, that's a load of question. I guess.
I have a lot of compassion for people. I'm very Catholic so and and forgiveness is huge with me. So if I could say anything to him, I would say, good luck. Life is better when it's when you're living it right, not bad.
If if you could have him say anything to you, what would you like him to say to you?
I don't. I don't.
Maybe just said it wasn't personal, had nothing to do with me, and he's not going to come back to get me.
Joe, what do you think about listening to that?
Sorry? Hard to listen to the man's hard to listen to them. I feel terrible. Mm hm, I felt terrible, man. Yeah, I had all that congested rage and I didn't give a fuck about myself anybody.
Man.
You know it was the saying I know it wasn't a victimless crime. That's really and and I know you know in the abstract that I went and hurt people and they took him with him, and she just verified that. And to hear it in in you know that concrete way, I struggle sometimes. I'm very confident, very bold. I got at of Bravado, I got a lot of you know, confidence. Where I feel the weakest is in my regret and
shame for the way I treated women. So I hated guys who were fucking weak and manipulative and trying to prey on women. And I hated them because I felt like, you sons of bitches are reminding me of me, and I do not like that you reminding me that I was like that. Fucking I don't. I mean, if I get upset in the world now, it's a that and I realize that. I get mad at men who remind me that I was that because it's so fucking shameful.
Do you ever do you ever get away from the shame? Does it ever grow away?
I mean, I know it's always a low. It's like Tonight's It's always there, and sometimes it's really low and sometimes it's really high. And that's my struggle. So I feel so fucking low.
Mmm. I feel bad for her.
You know, obviously I wouldn't do anything to hurt her, right, She's such a resilient person.
Look at that love.
She has such compassion. It's beautiful. It's not victimless. You gotta hurt people to get that money. I had to scare of them. And it's such a petty little man, such a petty little fucking man.
Ah, I mean, I was crying listen. It just broke my heart to remember that that was the guy who inflicted that m on her.
Just it's just.
I think, what's all hard about it?
Too? I know my mother would have loved me through it all, but a fucking shame. I shamed the memory of my mother by doing that to these good women.
You know, I think that I think that that is.
Uh, that's one of the hard things about it too, you know, mm hmmm. The fuck man is terrible.
You are listening to The Burden season four, Get the Money and Run. The Burden is produced by Orbit Media. Get the Money and Run is produced by Western Sound and Acast Studios. Next up, stay tuned for episode five two too many.
Thanks for listening. Remember to hear all episodes all at once and ad free. Subscribe to True Crime Clubhouse on Apple Podcasts. It's worth it. You'll find other gripping true crime series there also ad free. If you want to hear Ben talk about this episode, check out the teaser it's in the Burden feed